Cold, Remodeling, Snow

So much for cleaning and decluttering this am. I woke up coughing and choking at 0330 and after a couple of hits from my albuterol inhaler, I still could not go back to sleep. The head cold I had has gone into my lungs, which is tough for this asthmatic. It’ll be gallons of hot tea as well as sitting in a nice hot shower today.

This am, instead of worshipping in church, I said Morning Prayer all bundled up in my rocker. Lovely to pray while gazing at the hills blanketed by snow. One of the books I put up for sale on Amazon yesterday already has sold so I packed it up to send off tomorrow. Only Son’s Bride said she would take some of my old magazines that sit around here; she read of an arts project in which magazine strips could be woven into baskets. A good crafts project for the children, she thinks. Anything to get them out of my house yet be useful is great, I think. I will get a box in which to ship them off, via media mail.

In my last post, I made little mention of my Missouri trip except that I went. My brother Caretaker, whom I dropped by to see, has done an amazing amount of work on the parents’ house. The bedroom where my agoraphobic father practically lived has been totally remodeled. Caretaker tore up the rugs to reveal a hardwood floor; after the sanding and finishing he did, it absolutely gleams. The crumbling wainscoting and flaking wallpaper are gone and the walls are painted an orange tinted brown. New window treatments are up. One would never dream this was the same room. The changes flow into the next room, which was the guest room. It now is an office, also repainted and with new window coverings. The once open closet now has a door.

He has one more room to do, and once that is done it will become his little grandson’s bedroom. But poor Caretaker had to have major sinus surgery this past week, so any further remodeling is on hold. I tried to get in touch with him to see how he was but could not. They do not answer the main household phone as the brother who is in charge of the parents’ estate (why they did not put Caretaker in charge is a mystery) has dragged his feet in paying the estate’s bills, so bill collector literally ring the phone off the hook.

(The story of what happened with my parents’ estate is not only worthy of a blog post, but as a magazine article. It is a cautionary tale of what can happen if a person does not update estate plans. But since it involves family members, it really is unbloggable.)

Taciturn just finished shoveling the snow off of the driveway—at least enough to let a car through. The roads in our subdivision still are icy and slick so I suppose I would not have been able to get down the 8% grade hill that takes us in the subdivision to the main road to get to church today anyway. I’ll post some photos later on.